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Brain candy for Happy MutantsSat, 10 Dec 2016 01:42:34 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.187954168Tree-shaped ornaments each made of different woodshttp://boingboing.net/2016/12/08/tree-shaped-ornaments-each-mad.html
http://boingboing.net/2016/12/08/tree-shaped-ornaments-each-mad.html#commentsThu, 08 Dec 2016 13:22:21 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=498906These bespoke tree-shaped ornaments by Forge Creative might look great hanging from a tree, but they would also be right at home on a mantlepiece or in a curio cabinet.

Quoth Forge:

These collectible tree ornaments are hand-turned on a lathe and each tree is unique. We use off-cuts form a wide variety of woods and turn a them into different shaped trees. This way each one ends up with its own unique character. These look great as a small collection on a mantlepiece. We will pick trees at random and If you buy more than one we try to send a mix of different wood types and shapes. If you wish to choose a specific wood or colour, let us know and we will see what we can do.

These bespoke tree-shaped ornaments by Forge Creative might look great hanging from a tree, but they would also be right at home on a mantlepiece or in a curio cabinet.

Quoth Forge:

These collectible tree ornaments are hand-turned on a lathe and each tree is unique. We use off-cuts form a wide variety of woods and turn a them into different shaped trees. This way each one ends up with its own unique character. These look great as a small collection on a mantlepiece. We will pick trees at random and If you buy more than one we try to send a mix of different wood types and shapes. If you wish to choose a specific wood or colour, let us know and we will see what we can do.

Until the 18th century, the seashore was not a place most people would go to relax. In ancient times, it was where you might run into a variety of monsters like Scylla and Charybdis. The shore is also where one might encounter pirates, smallpox, or even a wayward Kraken. Then something changed. Sorbonne University historian Alain Corbin explores this unusual history in the book The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840, one of the sources for a fascinating Smithsonian magazine article about "Inventing the Beach":

Around the mid-18th century, according to Corbin, European elites began touting the curative qualities of fresh air, exercise and sea bathing. Especially in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution, aristocrats and intellectuals became preoccupied with their own health and hygiene. They viewed workers, whose numbers were multiplying in factories and new industrial towns, as strengthened through labor. By comparison, the upper classes seemed fragile and effete: lacking in physical prowess and destined for decline. The notion of the “restorative sea” was born. Physicians prescribed a plunge into chilly waters to invigorate and enliven. The first seaside resort opened on England’s eastern shore in the tiny town of Scarborough near York. Other coastal communities followed, catering to a growing clientele of sea bathers seeking treatment for a number of conditions: melancholy, rickets, leprosy, gout, impotence, tubercular infections, menstrual problems and “hysteria.” In an earlier version of today’s wellness culture, the practice of sea bathing went mainstream...

Tracing this remarkable turnaround, “the irresistible awakening of a collective desire for the shore,” Corbin concludes that by 1840, the beach meant something new to Europeans. It had become a place of human consumption; a sought-after “escape” from the city and the drudgery of modern life. The rise of trains and tourism facilitated this cultural and commercial process. Travel became affordable and easy. Middle-class families took to the shore in ever-increasing numbers. In sailors’ jargon, “on the beach” once connoted poverty and helplessness; being stranded or left behind. Now it conveyed health and pleasure. The term “vacation,” once used to describe an involuntary absence from work, was now a desired interlude.

Until the 18th century, the seashore was not a place most people would go to relax. In ancient times, it was where you might run into a variety of monsters like Scylla and Charybdis. The shore is also where one might encounter pirates, smallpox, or even a wayward Kraken. Then something changed. Sorbonne University historian Alain Corbin explores this unusual history in the book The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840, one of the sources for a fascinating Smithsonian magazine article about "Inventing the Beach":

Around the mid-18th century, according to Corbin, European elites began touting the curative qualities of fresh air, exercise and sea bathing. Especially in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution, aristocrats and intellectuals became preoccupied with their own health and hygiene. They viewed workers, whose numbers were multiplying in factories and new industrial towns, as strengthened through labor. By comparison, the upper classes seemed fragile and effete: lacking in physical prowess and destined for decline. The notion of the “restorative sea” was born. Physicians prescribed a plunge into chilly waters to invigorate and enliven. The first seaside resort opened on England’s eastern shore in the tiny town of Scarborough near York. Other coastal communities followed, catering to a growing clientele of sea bathers seeking treatment for a number of conditions: melancholy, rickets, leprosy, gout, impotence, tubercular infections, menstrual problems and “hysteria.” In an earlier version of today’s wellness culture, the practice of sea bathing went mainstream...

Tracing this remarkable turnaround, “the irresistible awakening of a collective desire for the shore,” Corbin concludes that by 1840, the beach meant something new to Europeans. It had become a place of human consumption; a sought-after “escape” from the city and the drudgery of modern life. The rise of trains and tourism facilitated this cultural and commercial process. Travel became affordable and easy. Middle-class families took to the shore in ever-increasing numbers. In sailors’ jargon, “on the beach” once connoted poverty and helplessness; being stranded or left behind. Now it conveyed health and pleasure. The term “vacation,” once used to describe an involuntary absence from work, was now a desired interlude.

Welcome to this year's Boing Boing Gift Guide, a piling-high of our most loved items from 2013 and beyond. There are books, comics, games, gadgets and much else besides: click the categories at the top to filter what you're most interested in.

The Clash's new 12-disk set is "a 12-disc monstrosity containing remastered versions of the original band’s studio recordings, three full discs of demos, rarities and live tracks and a DVD of all their videos, as well as plenty of bodacious swag"

This is subscription service for wonderful things. I'm one of the curators. Every three months, you'll receive a box containing physical items I've picked out. In past mailings I sent out magic tricks, microscopes, foods that trick your taste buds, and a chip of nice-smelling wood that sells for $25,000 a pound.

Made out of Crocs-like rubber, the Native Unisex Jefferson Slip-On Sneakers are an obnoxious orange-red (they come in a less aggressive colors, too). Each shoe is molded from a single piece of rubber. The off-white sole is painted on. I put the shoes on, and have hardly taken them off since. They are supremely comfortable, waterproof, and unlike my Tom's shoes, they don't get stinky when I wear them without socks. I'd say they are the perfect airport shoe because they slip off and on so easily, but for me they are the perfect everything shoe.

The Aeroccino 3 is a sleekly designed product about the size of a can of peaches that heats and froths milk to super fluffy consistency in about thirty seconds making for perfect cappuccinos, lattes or macchiatos. The frother has a clever frothing mechanism consisting of a ring magnet rotor that fits over a vertical post inside the unit and spins rapidly in the presence of a rotating magnetic field, which is created in the stator coils embedded in its base.

This replaced our guest bedroom digital alarm clock, which was ugly and suffered from the "what does this button do?" syndrome that's common in electronic gadgets. I counted five buttons, one 3-position switch, and one 4-position switch. The Kikkerland, on the other hand has one button (the large and intuitive alarm button) and two dials: one to set the time, and one to set the alarm. That's it. With enough training, even Pescovitz will be able to operate it when he spends the night.

Volcano Dust is a brand of powdered bhut jolokia chili peppers. Also known as ghost chills, bhut jolokias are mind-bendingly hot. For example, an average jalapeño pepper measures about 5,000 on the Scoville heat scale; a bhut jolokia measures 1,000,000 Scovilles. Here's to blown-out capsaicin receptors!

An alien who crash lands his spacecraft on Earth and must interact with human beings in a small mountain town. The alien can uses his formidable mental powers to block his appearance so that the townsfolk see him as a human (with one interesting exception). But as readers, we see him as a purple skinned, bug-eyed, pointy-eared spaceman. The alien is friendly. He is fascinated by human behavior, and when the town doctor is murdered, the mayor asks him to step in as a temporary replacement until they can find a permanent doctor. He agrees, somewhat reluctantly, because he is still unaccustomed to the ways of humans, but his curiosity wins out. The story develops into a good old fashioned murder mystery, with the twist that an alien disguised as a doctor is involved.

Bless Fantagraphics for publishing Carl Barks' duck comics. One of the three original inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame (along with Eisner and Jack Kirby), Barks was known for many years only as the nameless "good duck artist" in Walt Disney comic books. His stories read like Indiana Jones adventures, and the art is superb. Just looking at a Barks page make me feel good. My kids and I read Barks' duck comics together, over and over again.

This novel "conceived of" by J.J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst, looks like an old hardbound novel from a library, and is stuffed between the pages with ephemera, such as postcards, newspaper clippings, and sketches on napkins. Even if you never read it, it's a nice-looking artifact. See my page-turning video here.

Scratch is an excellent and free drag-and-drop programming language for kids developed at MIT. My 10-year-old daughter Jane uses it to create puzzles, games, and interactive cartoons. This terrific introductory book teaches Scratch through game programming.

An oversized book that reviews over 1,500 different tools, explaining why each one is great, and what its benefits are (Kevin Kelly my partner at the website Cool Tools). Stewart Brand, the creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, calls it "The real deal."

Written in 1955,The Talented Mr. Ripley is about a twentysomething con artist and social striver named Tom Ripley living in New York. When I sawThe Talented Mr. Ripley movie in 1999, I had no idea it was based on a novel by the same author of the famous Hitchcock movie,Strangers on a Train. I loved both movies. When I finally did learn that, I also learned that the author, Patricia Highsmith, wrote five novels starring the sociopathic anti-hero Tom Ripley. In the same way that Vince Gilligan made Breaking Bad's Walter White an awful person that I took a guilty pleasure in rooting for, Highsmith made the detestable Tom Ripley an intriguing character that I hoped would get away with his crimes. I have four more novels to find out if he ultimately does.

Without a doubt, Jack Davis is one of the greatest cartoonists ever, and one of the most highly-recognizable. With a career that started before the early days of EC's MAD and its sci-fi and horror titles, Davis's distinctive work has appeared on movie posters, book covers, and on a famous poster of Frankenstein's monster. IDW's artist's edition is a 176-page, 11-pound monster-sized collection of Davis' comic book work, reprinted at the same size as drawn - the two-page spreads measure 30 x 22 inches!. (Shown above: the variant cover edition).

I'm relishing all 358 art-laden pages about one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. They include the entireGhost World story (made into a movie directed by Terry Zwigoff) with annotations, plus a number of rarely seen stories. Several of the twelve essays about Clowes' work were new to me, and I enjoyed re-reading Joshua Glenn's sharp interview from a 1990Hermenaut interview. This is an essential book for all serious readers of Clowes' work.

The follow-up to David McRaney's delightful 2011 book, You Are Not So Smart, this book explores the reasons why people behave in irrational ways, including "The Misattribution of Arousal" (environmental factors have a greater affect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us),"Sunk Cost Fallacy" (we will engage in something we don’t enjoy just to make the time or money already invested “worth it”) and "Deindividuation" (despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality).

A deep dive into DIY synthesized music, with lots of circuits and information on using electronic components, but it has plenty of introductory material so it's suitable for electronics novices. I admire the author's design aesthetic too -- the devices he shows you how to build look neat.

Feral House's has a new edition of You Can't Win, one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It's the 1926 memoir of a man named Jack Black, who spent much of his life in the early 20th century as a hobo burglar and robber.

A novel about a professional thief's (named Parker) quest to get revenge on a partner who ripped him off and tried to have him killed right after Parker and his crew robbed a gang of arms smugglers. Parker doesn't let anyone impede his mission, even if it means killing an innocent person who just happens to be in the way. At one point while readingThe Hunter I contemplated abandoning it because I was bothered by Parker's psychotic disregard for human life, but two reasons kept me going. One, the people that Parker is going after are even more despicably inhuman than he is. And two, Westlake is such a terrific writer I couldn't stop myself from reading to find our what happens.

Cartoonist Tom Gauld's new book consists of single panels that explore the passage of time, absurdism, and most of the 7 Deadly Sins, all presented with a sense of graceful whimsy that makes his work such a delight to read. Peruse a sampling ofYou're All Just Jealous of My Jetpackhere.

Leonard Richardson's debut novel, Constellation Games left me literally trembling with excitement. Because Constellation Games IS AN AMAZING BOOK. Here's the plot: Ariel Blum is an Austin-based game-developer with a crappy job making Pony franchise collectible content games for the ten-year-old Brazilian girl market. Then aliens invade the Earth. The Constellation is a coalition of many alien species who have travelled unimaginable distances to invite the Earth to join their loose-knit, non-coercive, freewheeling anarcho-syndicalist collective civilization, which has more than 100 million years' worth of history. Read more

A fantastic book for maker-kids and their grownups. It consists of a charming series of instructional comics showing a little girl and her mom converting a cardboard box into an awesome robot -- basically a robot suit that the kid can wear. Read more

The story of Theodora, "a perfectly normal duck" who likes her routine -- swimming, stretching, taking books out of the library, buying duck kibble, doing craft projects (with duck burlap, naturally) and star-gazing. When Chad moves in next door, Theodora can tell she's not going to get along with him. He makes weird abstract sculptures, dyes his feathers funny colors, and talks a mile a minute.Read more

Hyperbole and a Half, a webcomic that is so funny, manic, and (at times) emotionally wrenching that it deserves its own entire category, has finally spawned a book! The book, subtitled "Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened" reprints many of Allie Brosh's best-loved pieces, and, excitingly, includes some all-new work. Read more

Holly Black's young adult vampire novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is everything a vampire novel should be: scary, angry, exciting and darkly sexy. It's a book that will make parents uneasy and give kids dangerous ideas. Read more

A surgical simulator; details include: skin with fat and fascia planes, every bone, muscle, tendon, and ligament in the body, fully articulating joints, a functioning respiratory system including trachea, lungs, and diaphragm, a complete digestive tract from the esophagus to rectum, the urinary tract (kidneys, bladder, and urethra), visceral organs (liver, gall bladder, pancreas, spleen), reproductive organs, a circulatory system with heart and coronary arteries, aorta, vena cava, and the primary arterial and venous trunks leading to the extremities. Read more

A repair-tape impregnated with fast-curing, moisture-activated resin; the manufacturer claims it hardens to a strength 100 times that of duct-tape, comparable to steel. Baseline room-humidity is generally enough to activate it once it's removed from its airtight pouch, but you can also soak it before applying. It cures to usability in 10 minutes, and fully sets in 24 hours. Read more

The 14" high T. Rex replica head gets pretty good reviews from the people who've bought it -- sounds like just the thing if you want to create the illusion that you're a time-traveling big game hunter. Read more

Etsy seller CreationsChristopher has listed a $9500 suit of Batman scalemaille, originally made for a Batfan project called Legends: The Dark Knight. It's handmade, took 350 hours to complete, and weighs 60 lbs. Read more

Restoration Hardware's "1920s German Light Bulb Voltage Tester Bar" sells for $2000. It's a replica of a century-old refitted German lightbulb voltage tester salvaged from a German factory, and it oozes Weimar decadence. It weighs 265lbs. Read more

First published in 1981, this fringe favorite is a bizarre encyclopedia of an imaginary world where surreality reigns supreme. Created by Italian architect/designer/artist Luigi Serafini, first editions go for as high as $2,000. Now though, Rizzoli has republished it in a fresh hardcover edition for a new generation of strange-seekers. Essential for any happy mutant library.

An 18th century wunderkammer in paper form, this gorgeous tome illustrates Albertus Seba's magnificent and legendary collection of animals, plants, and insects from across the planet. The latest Taschen hardcover edition is a more compact size than their massive (and out-of-print) first version yet it remains a stunning window onto the wonder of the world.

This hardcover collection spans the master pop surrealist's major art shows over the last two decades in a gorgeous 360 page, oversized hardcover book. Interspersed with Ryden's exquisite, strange, and often provocative paintings are essays by Yoshitomo Nara, Carlo McCormick, Kirsten Anderson, and others. More than a dozen of the paintings fold-out to 59 inches!

Everyone who has known the wonder of the GAMAGO Yeti from tshirts, toys, and other bric-à-brac has long wished for this mythical (?) beastie to come to life in narrative form. The wait is over with this delightful bedtime tale of shadows, monsters, and magic sure to please all children, and the adults that cuddle them.

A system of reusable plastic clips and hinges for cardboard construction of curious Rube Goldberg-ian contraptions, palaces for stuffed animals, spaceships, or most anything else with recycled cardboard as the raw material. Of course the shipping box is part of the present!

Get your kids (or yourself) started with creative electronics using this starter collection of color-coded modules like a motor, buzzer, light sensor, barograph, LED, and other components. Make a light-triggered alarm, drawing robot, three wheeler, and many other projects. And its easily expandable with the entire littleBits open source library of electronic modules.

A trip back in time to the 2600s, the console is loaded with Asteroids, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt, Centipede and 70 more classics. Joysticks are wireless. PS4? Xbox One? Who needs 'em.

This battery-powered palm-sized analog synthesizer is an absolutely joy to play, even if you can'treally play. Check out the thousands of demo videos on YouTube. Try one and you'll instantly lose yourself twiddling the knobs and riding the ribbon keyboard into the depths of space. Highly-hackable too.

From Nest Labs, makers of the Nest Learning Thermostat that became the darling of gadget bloggers, Nest Protect is an intelligent, Wi-Fi smoke and carbon monoxide detector. It turns off with a hand wave, gives you a verbal "heads-up" if it smells anything funky, and messages your smartphone if its alarm is triggered or it needs new batteries. Nest CEO (and former Apple exec) Tony Fadell is best known as being "one of the fathers of the iPod."

Mood lighting for the Internet of Things. The Philips Hue starter pack includes three RF (Zigbee)-enabled LED lightbulbs and a bridge that plugs into your WiFi router. Once connected, you use your iOS or Android device to control the color of the bulbs. Numerous third party apps using the Hue API enable you to do lots of fun light tricks, like match the lighting of photos or set the vibe based on your music choice.

Very small, minimalist design, quite durable, great battery life. Celebrity designer Yves Béhar gave it a CNC-milled aluminum unibody to keep it svelte. And, most importantly, the sound is surprisingly clear and rich for a speaker this small.

It's a robotic ball that you control with your smartphone. Sure, you can use it to play various augmented reality games. But mostly, it's a robotic ball that you control with your smartphone. Delightful! Babies and cats like it too.

Drones aren't just for the military! You too can fly your own UAV quadcopter from a smartphone and see what it sees through an onboard HD camera. A thriving online community of drone hackers has congregated around the Parrot. Seek them out and make your personal predator work for you!

You switch it on and it immediately switches itself off. That's all it does. And somehow, it's incredibly compelling. Soothing even, unless this infernal electromechanical contraption pulls you into its own existentialist crisis. Then you're screwed. Here's a video of it in action. Build your own with this satisfying kit.

Lost civilizations, Bigfoot, UFOs, magic, ancient astronauts, high weirdness transmitted directly from the 1970s. And of course, Spock narrates! Guess which Boing Boinger was influenced as a child by this long running TV show. The long-awaited collection includes 21 DVDs with 145 episodes. Fortean TV the way it should be.

RIP, Lou Reed. The definitive edition of this remastered 1967 album is laden with stereo and mono mixes, bonus material, outtakes, and the first official release of the classic live show at The Gymnasium, including five unreleased performances from John Cale's personal recording of the night. Plus a hardcover book. A worthy complement to last year's The Velvet Underground & Nico: 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition.

This tool changed my life, by transforming my work time from sedentary time to active time. You could build your own from scratch for less, or buy cheaper versions, but I have test-driven a number of treadmill desks and have settled on this one for my home. It is an excellent product, and the best investment I have made in a long time for my health and happiness. Much has been written about treadmill desks helping with weight management, and reducing cancer and cardiovascular disease risks, but one great bonus for me: uplifted mood, and clarity of thinking. It’s a kick-ass productivity tool, and I believe these should be the norm, not sit-down desks.

You don’t have to be a vegan to enjoy vegan cookbook queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s latest, which focuses on tips and strategies for making home-cooked, plant-based, nutritious and yummy meals in 30 minutes or less. 150 recipes for weeknight delights. It's easy.

I first got turned on to raw vegan chef Matthew Kenney through Instagram, which should tell you something about how beautiful his creations are. What I love about this 2013 cookbook, co-authored with Meredith Baird, is its focus on the rich aesthetic joy of healthy, simple, natural plant-based foods. Soups, main dishes, blended fruit or veggie tonics, 100 recipes and more. If you have a chance, visit Matthew Kenney’s wonderful restaurant in Santa Monica -- or, take a class at the adjacent cooking academy, to learn the art of this cuisine in person.

Through tweets and videos shared from space, astronaut Chris Hadfield has become a powerful force in the repopularization of space exploration. He’s a wonderful storyteller, and this book is an instant classic for all who wonder what lies out in the great blue yonder.

I love my dehydrator, and my only regret about it is that I didn’t splurge and buy one years ago. I use it to make grain-less raw vegan flatbreads, dried fruit snacks, energy bars, salt-soaked and re-dried raw nuts, and homemade yogurt. There are a number of models in the Excalibur line; this 5-tray model was right for me, but larger, smaller, simpler, and fancier ones are available. Best use of all: homemade kale chips. They’re so expensive in the store and I can eat so many in one sitting-- I figure I have already produced enough to justify the cost of my dehydrator in just a few months.

If I could have just one gadget in my kitchen, it’d be my Vitamix. I use it every day to prepare fruit and veggie smoothies, soups, hummus, whole grain and pseudograin (buckwheat, quinoa) flours, even nut butters and coconut milk. Total life-changer gadget. This is the higher-end model that is useful for more sophisticated cooks; there are simpler models in the Vitamix line with only two speed settings. If money’s tight or you don’t need infinitely variable speed settings, they’re a fine option, too.

A compilation of psychedelic pop music from
'60s and '70s Malaysia, lovingly researched and assembled by my
brother Carl Hamm. This is the definitive beginner's guide to a
fantastically obscure genre of Asian pop music, and a must-have for
all explorers of global music. CD availability is limited; if it's sold out, don't worry -- a vinyl edition with all 26 tracks spread out over 2 LPs is coming out in early 2014.

I never knew how much I needed this juicer until I had one. I use it to make green juice every day, as part of a plant-centric, health-promoting diet. I love fresh juice, and I love picking out fresh local ingredients to juice at my neighborhood weekly farmer’s market: herbs, lettuce, kale, chard, carrot tops, apples, cucumbers, celery, and citrus fruits generally end up in my daily blend. I’m also a fan of not paying $12 a glass for the stuff at a juice bar. This juicer allows you to include more pulp and fiber, which I believe is healthier than more strained, pure-liquid juice.

Form-fitting and an amazing solution for side sleepers. I find that I sleep more soundly and my chronic neck and shoulder pain is much more manageable when I sleep on a buckwheat pillow. You can pour out some of the hulls until you get the volume just right. Also, if you have this heavy thing? You’ll win every single pillow fight.

This was one of the gadgets that really helped me transform my life and my approach to health and fitness this year. I bought one for several loved ones, too. The Fitbit One is great, but I kept losing mine. The Fitbit Force has more features, but it feels too bulky to me. The Flex is just right for tracking steps and sleep. Tip for treadmill desk users: Just stick it in a pocket or around your belt while you’re on the treadmill, to more accurately capture steps while at your treadmill desk.

I’m one of those people who burns out stove-top kettles and pots of boiling water all the time. No more. This model of Bonavita’s electric kettle offers variable temperature controls for coffee and tea connoisseurs who want precision. There’s a cheaper model for about half the price without that feature, which may suit you just as well. Both are recommended.

I use my cast-iron griddle for everything from oven-baked flatbreads to stove-top pancakes to slow-fried tofu. Best $15 I ever spent. If it loses its lustre, coat it in coconut oil and bake for an hour or so at 350º, and it’ll out-fry any teflon pan with no weird synthetic particles degrading into your food over time.

Yes, it’s a pricey, ostentatious, indulgent collection marketed to helplessly addicted fans, but it’s also available at ⅔ the original price now, and if you’re a true Breaking Bad junkie, no price is too high for that 99% pure blue stuff. Tight, tight, tight, yeah!

Best value luggage I’ve ever owned, OCD heaven. Available with zip-up “packing cubes” you can roll and stuff garments or electronics into, to further compress items and make the best use of space. Tons of pockets and flaps to organize your stuff. No matter how long my trip, I tend to carry only this bag now, and it easily stuffs into overhead compartments on most commercial flights. All this for about $150.

“The ‘Dillingers of the East,’ Robert Mais and Walter Legenza led their men and molls on a violent journey of robberies, murders, and escapes up and down the East Coast.” A riveting historical tale of one of the most bloody, ruthless gangs in early 20th-century American history, researched and written by Selden Richardson and edited by my mom.

New York Times reporter John Schwartz tells the story of how his family struggled to help their teen son come to terms with his sexual identity. It’s a beautiful tale, told candidly and with love by a great storyteller -- and his son. Here's an excerpt.

For the military or history buff, my book of my great-grandfather's World War I photos will be shipping shortly after Christmas. The advance copies just came in and they look incredible! It's a real intimate and deep look into life and war a hundred years ago told through the huge collection of an excellent photographer. Previously: Trench photos - Church photos

I was an early backer of the Pebble smartwatch on Kickstarter, and it's immediately become indispensable in my daily life. Just getting texts and call info without fiddling with my phone has lifted the weight of endless modern-day communication.

Patagonia made some kind of magic space material that keeps you warm, dry, and not too hot or sweaty in a silky smooth shirt. Grab the long sleeve in the lightest Capilene 1 weight if you can find it. Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all!

The latest Macbook Pro is the heavy duty workhorse you'll expect from a high-end computer, but the real surprise is the new retina display. Having just spent months staring closely at fine photo prints, I was blown away when I loaded up a scan for the first time. You're missing a lot on less detailed screens.

Fruit juice with a dash of bitters was a favorite drink of mine while I was pregnant. I love Bittercube because of the variety of flavors available. (And it's a local Minneapolis product!) Try pineapple juice with the Jamaican #1.

Stretchy cotton wrap-style baby carriers are amazing things. Moby is the well-known brand, and will run you upwards of $50 a pop. Head over to Etsy, where you can get roughly the same thing (and some great variations on it, including cool gauze wraps for summer) for half the price. I bought the Balasana wrap and it's been amazing. We use it to attach our baby to my husband's chest, then he puts his jacket on over both of them and, voila ... we're ready for a chilly fall walk. It's also great for multitasking. At just a few days old, Althea sat in the wrap while my husband walked at a treadmill desk and participated in a conference call.

My husband and I made fun of this overly complicated, space-pod looking baby chair ... right up until the day we bought one. Our daughter loves to bounce. She also loves car rides. The Mamaroo chair can mimic the motion of both for hours -- something our knees and backs and interest level in driving can't tolerate. It's got a built in white noise generator and a nifty little mobile that can flip from newborn-friendly, high-contrast black-and-white shapes to colorful images as your kid's brain starts to improve its ability to distinguish one color from another.

Buy this for all the pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant science nerds on your holiday shopping list. Author Emily Oster tackles the evidence (and lack thereof) behind some of the biggest questions people have about their pregnancies. Not only does she do a great job of clearing up confusion and dispelling myths, but Oster also spends time showing you how data gets translated (and sometimes mistranslated) into medical advice ... and how that advice morphs into frequently inaccurate "common sense". Beyond the basic Q&A, it's that information that will help you figure out when it's best to question what your friends and family and doctor are telling you.

No-slip grip means they're better for wearing around on hardwood, tile, and linoleum. Sock styling means they're more comfortable to just wear around all day than the average solid slipper (at least from my perspective). Great gift for anybody who works from home and likes to keep their feet toasty in the winter.

Adorable series of board books that turn the works of great literature into something suitable for the teething set. Illustrated with beautiful photos of felted dolls, the series takes books like War and Peace down to something that can be told in 10 words paired with pictures.

Gorgeously illustrated by artist Gwen Seemel, this kids' book is about the diversity of gender expression, sex, reproduction, and child-rearing found in nature. It's lovely, non-preachy, and will teach kids about science as well as teaching them that "normal" is a very relative concept.

Not the most upbeat read, but a necessary one, all about the horrible history of doctors and scientists exploiting black Americans for research. A good follow up if you want to understand the historical context behind the best selling Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

THE book to read if you want to understand why the links between pollution and cancer aren't as neat and tidy in real life as they are in the movies. Dan Fagin tells the heartbreaking story of a New Jersey town that may or may not have become a hotbed of childhood cancers, which (if there really are more cancers than average) may or may not be linked to a local dye factory. Nuanced, fantastically written, and illuminating.

After five volumes, this sometimes cheesy (but in a fun way) guilty pleasure is starting to draw together all the different threads of its narrative into something big. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes next. In the meantime, it's a good read with fast pacing, strong characters, and lots of gratuitous comic book sex and violence.

Want to gift a great book about a dystopian society where the social structure is based on color perception, but instead have everyone think you're handing out mommy porn? Shades of Grey, minus the 50, is the book for you!

This 68 piece, assemble it yourself (with a small phillips head), TLR (twin lens reflex) camera is a fantastic gift for a budding photographer or long time photo enthusiast. Shooting with a TLR is one of my favorite things, this do-it-yourself kit is certainly a great place to start!

From the creators of the original Steadicam, the Smoothee makes it possible to get shake-free run-and-gun footage from your cellphone or GoPro. It takes practice to get good results! It's moddable for compact cameras, though people with DSLRs or big lenses should consider the heftier Merlin.

Though as small as a point-and-shoot, Panasonic's Lumix GM1 accepts Micro Four-Thirds lenses and uses the same sensor as its flagship sibling, the Lumix GX7. Released just this month, critics are already hailing it the camera of the year.

Sony's RX100 mkII is the best consumer point-and-shoot camera, period. A miracle of miniaturization and image quality, it stands practically alone in its class. At $750, however, it's as pricey as the Lumix GM1, which has a larger sensor and interchangeable lenses.

Apple's lightest remains a great ultraportable laptop, though the lack of a high-resolution display makes competition such as the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 easier to drift to. Don't skimp on RAM, as it cannot be upgraded.

Lenovo's latest ultraportable is the first to truly make Apple's MacBook Air look out of breath. Its amazing 3200x1800 display and powerful hardware make it the best option for Windows users, though it pays for it all with relatively poor battery life.

Apple's two models of iPad are now essentially the same thing in different sizes, both featuring retina displays, a 64-bit A7 CPU and the same storage and connectivity options. Nothing else is quite in the same league, this holiday season; Android users should wait for next year's crop.

A cheap, iTunes-compatible player with physical controls is essential for joggers, drivers, cyclists and anyone else smart enough to know that touchscreens will kill them. Apple are going to stop making these sooner or later: better buy five of them now.

Called "one of the most important works in American Fantasy" by the American Library Association, Elfquest is back in print after an online run here at Boing Boing. DC Comics' hardcopy archive editions are among the best.

In Zack Giallongo's fantasy debut Zora, a barbarian princess, meets Broxo, the half-feral last survivor of a mysteriously vanished tribe. Together, the two explore the desolate, draugr-infested Peryton Peak and uncover the mountain's secrets. Read more

For long-form reading on the road, there's still nothing better than Kindle's Paperwhite--it comes down to the gentle, even backlighting. Be sure to get the slightly pricier version which doesn't come with "Special Offers"--Amazon's odd way of describing pervasive in-Kindle ads. Note that the giant Kindle DX is now on clearance at just $170.

Welcome to this year's Boing Boing Gift Guide, a piling-high of our most loved items from 2013 and beyond. There are books, comics, games, gadgets and much else besides: click the categories at the top to filter what you're most interested in.

The Clash's new 12-disk set is "a 12-disc monstrosity containing remastered versions of the original band’s studio recordings, three full discs of demos, rarities and live tracks and a DVD of all their videos, as well as plenty of bodacious swag"

This is subscription service for wonderful things. I'm one of the curators. Every three months, you'll receive a box containing physical items I've picked out. In past mailings I sent out magic tricks, microscopes, foods that trick your taste buds, and a chip of nice-smelling wood that sells for $25,000 a pound.

Made out of Crocs-like rubber, the Native Unisex Jefferson Slip-On Sneakers are an obnoxious orange-red (they come in a less aggressive colors, too). Each shoe is molded from a single piece of rubber. The off-white sole is painted on. I put the shoes on, and have hardly taken them off since. They are supremely comfortable, waterproof, and unlike my Tom's shoes, they don't get stinky when I wear them without socks. I'd say they are the perfect airport shoe because they slip off and on so easily, but for me they are the perfect everything shoe.

The Aeroccino 3 is a sleekly designed product about the size of a can of peaches that heats and froths milk to super fluffy consistency in about thirty seconds making for perfect cappuccinos, lattes or macchiatos. The frother has a clever frothing mechanism consisting of a ring magnet rotor that fits over a vertical post inside the unit and spins rapidly in the presence of a rotating magnetic field, which is created in the stator coils embedded in its base.

This replaced our guest bedroom digital alarm clock, which was ugly and suffered from the "what does this button do?" syndrome that's common in electronic gadgets. I counted five buttons, one 3-position switch, and one 4-position switch. The Kikkerland, on the other hand has one button (the large and intuitive alarm button) and two dials: one to set the time, and one to set the alarm. That's it. With enough training, even Pescovitz will be able to operate it when he spends the night.

Volcano Dust is a brand of powdered bhut jolokia chili peppers. Also known as ghost chills, bhut jolokias are mind-bendingly hot. For example, an average jalapeño pepper measures about 5,000 on the Scoville heat scale; a bhut jolokia measures 1,000,000 Scovilles. Here's to blown-out capsaicin receptors!

An alien who crash lands his spacecraft on Earth and must interact with human beings in a small mountain town. The alien can uses his formidable mental powers to block his appearance so that the townsfolk see him as a human (with one interesting exception). But as readers, we see him as a purple skinned, bug-eyed, pointy-eared spaceman. The alien is friendly. He is fascinated by human behavior, and when the town doctor is murdered, the mayor asks him to step in as a temporary replacement until they can find a permanent doctor. He agrees, somewhat reluctantly, because he is still unaccustomed to the ways of humans, but his curiosity wins out. The story develops into a good old fashioned murder mystery, with the twist that an alien disguised as a doctor is involved.

Bless Fantagraphics for publishing Carl Barks' duck comics. One of the three original inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame (along with Eisner and Jack Kirby), Barks was known for many years only as the nameless "good duck artist" in Walt Disney comic books. His stories read like Indiana Jones adventures, and the art is superb. Just looking at a Barks page make me feel good. My kids and I read Barks' duck comics together, over and over again.

This novel "conceived of" by J.J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst, looks like an old hardbound novel from a library, and is stuffed between the pages with ephemera, such as postcards, newspaper clippings, and sketches on napkins. Even if you never read it, it's a nice-looking artifact. See my page-turning video here.

Scratch is an excellent and free drag-and-drop programming language for kids developed at MIT. My 10-year-old daughter Jane uses it to create puzzles, games, and interactive cartoons. This terrific introductory book teaches Scratch through game programming.

An oversized book that reviews over 1,500 different tools, explaining why each one is great, and what its benefits are (Kevin Kelly my partner at the website Cool Tools). Stewart Brand, the creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, calls it "The real deal."

Written in 1955,The Talented Mr. Ripley is about a twentysomething con artist and social striver named Tom Ripley living in New York. When I sawThe Talented Mr. Ripley movie in 1999, I had no idea it was based on a novel by the same author of the famous Hitchcock movie,Strangers on a Train. I loved both movies. When I finally did learn that, I also learned that the author, Patricia Highsmith, wrote five novels starring the sociopathic anti-hero Tom Ripley. In the same way that Vince Gilligan made Breaking Bad's Walter White an awful person that I took a guilty pleasure in rooting for, Highsmith made the detestable Tom Ripley an intriguing character that I hoped would get away with his crimes. I have four more novels to find out if he ultimately does.

Without a doubt, Jack Davis is one of the greatest cartoonists ever, and one of the most highly-recognizable. With a career that started before the early days of EC's MAD and its sci-fi and horror titles, Davis's distinctive work has appeared on movie posters, book covers, and on a famous poster of Frankenstein's monster. IDW's artist's edition is a 176-page, 11-pound monster-sized collection of Davis' comic book work, reprinted at the same size as drawn - the two-page spreads measure 30 x 22 inches!. (Shown above: the variant cover edition).

I'm relishing all 358 art-laden pages about one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. They include the entireGhost World story (made into a movie directed by Terry Zwigoff) with annotations, plus a number of rarely seen stories. Several of the twelve essays about Clowes' work were new to me, and I enjoyed re-reading Joshua Glenn's sharp interview from a 1990Hermenaut interview. This is an essential book for all serious readers of Clowes' work.

The follow-up to David McRaney's delightful 2011 book, You Are Not So Smart, this book explores the reasons why people behave in irrational ways, including "The Misattribution of Arousal" (environmental factors have a greater affect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us),"Sunk Cost Fallacy" (we will engage in something we don’t enjoy just to make the time or money already invested “worth it”) and "Deindividuation" (despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality).

A deep dive into DIY synthesized music, with lots of circuits and information on using electronic components, but it has plenty of introductory material so it's suitable for electronics novices. I admire the author's design aesthetic too -- the devices he shows you how to build look neat.

Feral House's has a new edition of You Can't Win, one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It's the 1926 memoir of a man named Jack Black, who spent much of his life in the early 20th century as a hobo burglar and robber.

A novel about a professional thief's (named Parker) quest to get revenge on a partner who ripped him off and tried to have him killed right after Parker and his crew robbed a gang of arms smugglers. Parker doesn't let anyone impede his mission, even if it means killing an innocent person who just happens to be in the way. At one point while readingThe Hunter I contemplated abandoning it because I was bothered by Parker's psychotic disregard for human life, but two reasons kept me going. One, the people that Parker is going after are even more despicably inhuman than he is. And two, Westlake is such a terrific writer I couldn't stop myself from reading to find our what happens.

Cartoonist Tom Gauld's new book consists of single panels that explore the passage of time, absurdism, and most of the 7 Deadly Sins, all presented with a sense of graceful whimsy that makes his work such a delight to read. Peruse a sampling ofYou're All Just Jealous of My Jetpackhere.

Leonard Richardson's debut novel, Constellation Games left me literally trembling with excitement. Because Constellation Games IS AN AMAZING BOOK. Here's the plot: Ariel Blum is an Austin-based game-developer with a crappy job making Pony franchise collectible content games for the ten-year-old Brazilian girl market. Then aliens invade the Earth. The Constellation is a coalition of many alien species who have travelled unimaginable distances to invite the Earth to join their loose-knit, non-coercive, freewheeling anarcho-syndicalist collective civilization, which has more than 100 million years' worth of history. Read more

A fantastic book for maker-kids and their grownups. It consists of a charming series of instructional comics showing a little girl and her mom converting a cardboard box into an awesome robot -- basically a robot suit that the kid can wear. Read more

The story of Theodora, "a perfectly normal duck" who likes her routine -- swimming, stretching, taking books out of the library, buying duck kibble, doing craft projects (with duck burlap, naturally) and star-gazing. When Chad moves in next door, Theodora can tell she's not going to get along with him. He makes weird abstract sculptures, dyes his feathers funny colors, and talks a mile a minute.Read more

Hyperbole and a Half, a webcomic that is so funny, manic, and (at times) emotionally wrenching that it deserves its own entire category, has finally spawned a book! The book, subtitled "Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened" reprints many of Allie Brosh's best-loved pieces, and, excitingly, includes some all-new work. Read more

Holly Black's young adult vampire novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is everything a vampire novel should be: scary, angry, exciting and darkly sexy. It's a book that will make parents uneasy and give kids dangerous ideas. Read more

A surgical simulator; details include: skin with fat and fascia planes, every bone, muscle, tendon, and ligament in the body, fully articulating joints, a functioning respiratory system including trachea, lungs, and diaphragm, a complete digestive tract from the esophagus to rectum, the urinary tract (kidneys, bladder, and urethra), visceral organs (liver, gall bladder, pancreas, spleen), reproductive organs, a circulatory system with heart and coronary arteries, aorta, vena cava, and the primary arterial and venous trunks leading to the extremities. Read more

A repair-tape impregnated with fast-curing, moisture-activated resin; the manufacturer claims it hardens to a strength 100 times that of duct-tape, comparable to steel. Baseline room-humidity is generally enough to activate it once it's removed from its airtight pouch, but you can also soak it before applying. It cures to usability in 10 minutes, and fully sets in 24 hours. Read more

The 14" high T. Rex replica head gets pretty good reviews from the people who've bought it -- sounds like just the thing if you want to create the illusion that you're a time-traveling big game hunter. Read more

Etsy seller CreationsChristopher has listed a $9500 suit of Batman scalemaille, originally made for a Batfan project called Legends: The Dark Knight. It's handmade, took 350 hours to complete, and weighs 60 lbs. Read more

Restoration Hardware's "1920s German Light Bulb Voltage Tester Bar" sells for $2000. It's a replica of a century-old refitted German lightbulb voltage tester salvaged from a German factory, and it oozes Weimar decadence. It weighs 265lbs. Read more

First published in 1981, this fringe favorite is a bizarre encyclopedia of an imaginary world where surreality reigns supreme. Created by Italian architect/designer/artist Luigi Serafini, first editions go for as high as $2,000. Now though, Rizzoli has republished it in a fresh hardcover edition for a new generation of strange-seekers. Essential for any happy mutant library.

An 18th century wunderkammer in paper form, this gorgeous tome illustrates Albertus Seba's magnificent and legendary collection of animals, plants, and insects from across the planet. The latest Taschen hardcover edition is a more compact size than their massive (and out-of-print) first version yet it remains a stunning window onto the wonder of the world.

This hardcover collection spans the master pop surrealist's major art shows over the last two decades in a gorgeous 360 page, oversized hardcover book. Interspersed with Ryden's exquisite, strange, and often provocative paintings are essays by Yoshitomo Nara, Carlo McCormick, Kirsten Anderson, and others. More than a dozen of the paintings fold-out to 59 inches!

Everyone who has known the wonder of the GAMAGO Yeti from tshirts, toys, and other bric-à-brac has long wished for this mythical (?) beastie to come to life in narrative form. The wait is over with this delightful bedtime tale of shadows, monsters, and magic sure to please all children, and the adults that cuddle them.

A system of reusable plastic clips and hinges for cardboard construction of curious Rube Goldberg-ian contraptions, palaces for stuffed animals, spaceships, or most anything else with recycled cardboard as the raw material. Of course the shipping box is part of the present!

Get your kids (or yourself) started with creative electronics using this starter collection of color-coded modules like a motor, buzzer, light sensor, barograph, LED, and other components. Make a light-triggered alarm, drawing robot, three wheeler, and many other projects. And its easily expandable with the entire littleBits open source library of electronic modules.

A trip back in time to the 2600s, the console is loaded with Asteroids, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt, Centipede and 70 more classics. Joysticks are wireless. PS4? Xbox One? Who needs 'em.

This battery-powered palm-sized analog synthesizer is an absolutely joy to play, even if you can'treally play. Check out the thousands of demo videos on YouTube. Try one and you'll instantly lose yourself twiddling the knobs and riding the ribbon keyboard into the depths of space. Highly-hackable too.

From Nest Labs, makers of the Nest Learning Thermostat that became the darling of gadget bloggers, Nest Protect is an intelligent, Wi-Fi smoke and carbon monoxide detector. It turns off with a hand wave, gives you a verbal "heads-up" if it smells anything funky, and messages your smartphone if its alarm is triggered or it needs new batteries. Nest CEO (and former Apple exec) Tony Fadell is best known as being "one of the fathers of the iPod."

Mood lighting for the Internet of Things. The Philips Hue starter pack includes three RF (Zigbee)-enabled LED lightbulbs and a bridge that plugs into your WiFi router. Once connected, you use your iOS or Android device to control the color of the bulbs. Numerous third party apps using the Hue API enable you to do lots of fun light tricks, like match the lighting of photos or set the vibe based on your music choice.

Very small, minimalist design, quite durable, great battery life. Celebrity designer Yves Béhar gave it a CNC-milled aluminum unibody to keep it svelte. And, most importantly, the sound is surprisingly clear and rich for a speaker this small.

It's a robotic ball that you control with your smartphone. Sure, you can use it to play various augmented reality games. But mostly, it's a robotic ball that you control with your smartphone. Delightful! Babies and cats like it too.

Drones aren't just for the military! You too can fly your own UAV quadcopter from a smartphone and see what it sees through an onboard HD camera. A thriving online community of drone hackers has congregated around the Parrot. Seek them out and make your personal predator work for you!

You switch it on and it immediately switches itself off. That's all it does. And somehow, it's incredibly compelling. Soothing even, unless this infernal electromechanical contraption pulls you into its own existentialist crisis. Then you're screwed. Here's a video of it in action. Build your own with this satisfying kit.

Lost civilizations, Bigfoot, UFOs, magic, ancient astronauts, high weirdness transmitted directly from the 1970s. And of course, Spock narrates! Guess which Boing Boinger was influenced as a child by this long running TV show. The long-awaited collection includes 21 DVDs with 145 episodes. Fortean TV the way it should be.

RIP, Lou Reed. The definitive edition of this remastered 1967 album is laden with stereo and mono mixes, bonus material, outtakes, and the first official release of the classic live show at The Gymnasium, including five unreleased performances from John Cale's personal recording of the night. Plus a hardcover book. A worthy complement to last year's The Velvet Underground & Nico: 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition.

This tool changed my life, by transforming my work time from sedentary time to active time. You could build your own from scratch for less, or buy cheaper versions, but I have test-driven a number of treadmill desks and have settled on this one for my home. It is an excellent product, and the best investment I have made in a long time for my health and happiness. Much has been written about treadmill desks helping with weight management, and reducing cancer and cardiovascular disease risks, but one great bonus for me: uplifted mood, and clarity of thinking. It’s a kick-ass productivity tool, and I believe these should be the norm, not sit-down desks.

You don’t have to be a vegan to enjoy vegan cookbook queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s latest, which focuses on tips and strategies for making home-cooked, plant-based, nutritious and yummy meals in 30 minutes or less. 150 recipes for weeknight delights. It's easy.

I first got turned on to raw vegan chef Matthew Kenney through Instagram, which should tell you something about how beautiful his creations are. What I love about this 2013 cookbook, co-authored with Meredith Baird, is its focus on the rich aesthetic joy of healthy, simple, natural plant-based foods. Soups, main dishes, blended fruit or veggie tonics, 100 recipes and more. If you have a chance, visit Matthew Kenney’s wonderful restaurant in Santa Monica -- or, take a class at the adjacent cooking academy, to learn the art of this cuisine in person.

Through tweets and videos shared from space, astronaut Chris Hadfield has become a powerful force in the repopularization of space exploration. He’s a wonderful storyteller, and this book is an instant classic for all who wonder what lies out in the great blue yonder.

I love my dehydrator, and my only regret about it is that I didn’t splurge and buy one years ago. I use it to make grain-less raw vegan flatbreads, dried fruit snacks, energy bars, salt-soaked and re-dried raw nuts, and homemade yogurt. There are a number of models in the Excalibur line; this 5-tray model was right for me, but larger, smaller, simpler, and fancier ones are available. Best use of all: homemade kale chips. They’re so expensive in the store and I can eat so many in one sitting-- I figure I have already produced enough to justify the cost of my dehydrator in just a few months.

If I could have just one gadget in my kitchen, it’d be my Vitamix. I use it every day to prepare fruit and veggie smoothies, soups, hummus, whole grain and pseudograin (buckwheat, quinoa) flours, even nut butters and coconut milk. Total life-changer gadget. This is the higher-end model that is useful for more sophisticated cooks; there are simpler models in the Vitamix line with only two speed settings. If money’s tight or you don’t need infinitely variable speed settings, they’re a fine option, too.

A compilation of psychedelic pop music from
'60s and '70s Malaysia, lovingly researched and assembled by my
brother Carl Hamm. This is the definitive beginner's guide to a
fantastically obscure genre of Asian pop music, and a must-have for
all explorers of global music. CD availability is limited; if it's sold out, don't worry -- a vinyl edition with all 26 tracks spread out over 2 LPs is coming out in early 2014.

I never knew how much I needed this juicer until I had one. I use it to make green juice every day, as part of a plant-centric, health-promoting diet. I love fresh juice, and I love picking out fresh local ingredients to juice at my neighborhood weekly farmer’s market: herbs, lettuce, kale, chard, carrot tops, apples, cucumbers, celery, and citrus fruits generally end up in my daily blend. I’m also a fan of not paying $12 a glass for the stuff at a juice bar. This juicer allows you to include more pulp and fiber, which I believe is healthier than more strained, pure-liquid juice.

Form-fitting and an amazing solution for side sleepers. I find that I sleep more soundly and my chronic neck and shoulder pain is much more manageable when I sleep on a buckwheat pillow. You can pour out some of the hulls until you get the volume just right. Also, if you have this heavy thing? You’ll win every single pillow fight.

This was one of the gadgets that really helped me transform my life and my approach to health and fitness this year. I bought one for several loved ones, too. The Fitbit One is great, but I kept losing mine. The Fitbit Force has more features, but it feels too bulky to me. The Flex is just right for tracking steps and sleep. Tip for treadmill desk users: Just stick it in a pocket or around your belt while you’re on the treadmill, to more accurately capture steps while at your treadmill desk.

I’m one of those people who burns out stove-top kettles and pots of boiling water all the time. No more. This model of Bonavita’s electric kettle offers variable temperature controls for coffee and tea connoisseurs who want precision. There’s a cheaper model for about half the price without that feature, which may suit you just as well. Both are recommended.

I use my cast-iron griddle for everything from oven-baked flatbreads to stove-top pancakes to slow-fried tofu. Best $15 I ever spent. If it loses its lustre, coat it in coconut oil and bake for an hour or so at 350º, and it’ll out-fry any teflon pan with no weird synthetic particles degrading into your food over time.

Yes, it’s a pricey, ostentatious, indulgent collection marketed to helplessly addicted fans, but it’s also available at ⅔ the original price now, and if you’re a true Breaking Bad junkie, no price is too high for that 99% pure blue stuff. Tight, tight, tight, yeah!

Best value luggage I’ve ever owned, OCD heaven. Available with zip-up “packing cubes” you can roll and stuff garments or electronics into, to further compress items and make the best use of space. Tons of pockets and flaps to organize your stuff. No matter how long my trip, I tend to carry only this bag now, and it easily stuffs into overhead compartments on most commercial flights. All this for about $150.

“The ‘Dillingers of the East,’ Robert Mais and Walter Legenza led their men and molls on a violent journey of robberies, murders, and escapes up and down the East Coast.” A riveting historical tale of one of the most bloody, ruthless gangs in early 20th-century American history, researched and written by Selden Richardson and edited by my mom.

New York Times reporter John Schwartz tells the story of how his family struggled to help their teen son come to terms with his sexual identity. It’s a beautiful tale, told candidly and with love by a great storyteller -- and his son. Here's an excerpt.

For the military or history buff, my book of my great-grandfather's World War I photos will be shipping shortly after Christmas. The advance copies just came in and they look incredible! It's a real intimate and deep look into life and war a hundred years ago told through the huge collection of an excellent photographer. Previously: Trench photos - Church photos

I was an early backer of the Pebble smartwatch on Kickstarter, and it's immediately become indispensable in my daily life. Just getting texts and call info without fiddling with my phone has lifted the weight of endless modern-day communication.

Patagonia made some kind of magic space material that keeps you warm, dry, and not too hot or sweaty in a silky smooth shirt. Grab the long sleeve in the lightest Capilene 1 weight if you can find it. Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all!

The latest Macbook Pro is the heavy duty workhorse you'll expect from a high-end computer, but the real surprise is the new retina display. Having just spent months staring closely at fine photo prints, I was blown away when I loaded up a scan for the first time. You're missing a lot on less detailed screens.

Fruit juice with a dash of bitters was a favorite drink of mine while I was pregnant. I love Bittercube because of the variety of flavors available. (And it's a local Minneapolis product!) Try pineapple juice with the Jamaican #1.

Stretchy cotton wrap-style baby carriers are amazing things. Moby is the well-known brand, and will run you upwards of $50 a pop. Head over to Etsy, where you can get roughly the same thing (and some great variations on it, including cool gauze wraps for summer) for half the price. I bought the Balasana wrap and it's been amazing. We use it to attach our baby to my husband's chest, then he puts his jacket on over both of them and, voila ... we're ready for a chilly fall walk. It's also great for multitasking. At just a few days old, Althea sat in the wrap while my husband walked at a treadmill desk and participated in a conference call.

My husband and I made fun of this overly complicated, space-pod looking baby chair ... right up until the day we bought one. Our daughter loves to bounce. She also loves car rides. The Mamaroo chair can mimic the motion of both for hours -- something our knees and backs and interest level in driving can't tolerate. It's got a built in white noise generator and a nifty little mobile that can flip from newborn-friendly, high-contrast black-and-white shapes to colorful images as your kid's brain starts to improve its ability to distinguish one color from another.

Buy this for all the pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant science nerds on your holiday shopping list. Author Emily Oster tackles the evidence (and lack thereof) behind some of the biggest questions people have about their pregnancies. Not only does she do a great job of clearing up confusion and dispelling myths, but Oster also spends time showing you how data gets translated (and sometimes mistranslated) into medical advice ... and how that advice morphs into frequently inaccurate "common sense". Beyond the basic Q&A, it's that information that will help you figure out when it's best to question what your friends and family and doctor are telling you.

No-slip grip means they're better for wearing around on hardwood, tile, and linoleum. Sock styling means they're more comfortable to just wear around all day than the average solid slipper (at least from my perspective). Great gift for anybody who works from home and likes to keep their feet toasty in the winter.

Adorable series of board books that turn the works of great literature into something suitable for the teething set. Illustrated with beautiful photos of felted dolls, the series takes books like War and Peace down to something that can be told in 10 words paired with pictures.

Gorgeously illustrated by artist Gwen Seemel, this kids' book is about the diversity of gender expression, sex, reproduction, and child-rearing found in nature. It's lovely, non-preachy, and will teach kids about science as well as teaching them that "normal" is a very relative concept.

Not the most upbeat read, but a necessary one, all about the horrible history of doctors and scientists exploiting black Americans for research. A good follow up if you want to understand the historical context behind the best selling Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

THE book to read if you want to understand why the links between pollution and cancer aren't as neat and tidy in real life as they are in the movies. Dan Fagin tells the heartbreaking story of a New Jersey town that may or may not have become a hotbed of childhood cancers, which (if there really are more cancers than average) may or may not be linked to a local dye factory. Nuanced, fantastically written, and illuminating.

After five volumes, this sometimes cheesy (but in a fun way) guilty pleasure is starting to draw together all the different threads of its narrative into something big. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes next. In the meantime, it's a good read with fast pacing, strong characters, and lots of gratuitous comic book sex and violence.

Want to gift a great book about a dystopian society where the social structure is based on color perception, but instead have everyone think you're handing out mommy porn? Shades of Grey, minus the 50, is the book for you!

This 68 piece, assemble it yourself (with a small phillips head), TLR (twin lens reflex) camera is a fantastic gift for a budding photographer or long time photo enthusiast. Shooting with a TLR is one of my favorite things, this do-it-yourself kit is certainly a great place to start!

From the creators of the original Steadicam, the Smoothee makes it possible to get shake-free run-and-gun footage from your cellphone or GoPro. It takes practice to get good results! It's moddable for compact cameras, though people with DSLRs or big lenses should consider the heftier Merlin.

Though as small as a point-and-shoot, Panasonic's Lumix GM1 accepts Micro Four-Thirds lenses and uses the same sensor as its flagship sibling, the Lumix GX7. Released just this month, critics are already hailing it the camera of the year.

Sony's RX100 mkII is the best consumer point-and-shoot camera, period. A miracle of miniaturization and image quality, it stands practically alone in its class. At $750, however, it's as pricey as the Lumix GM1, which has a larger sensor and interchangeable lenses.

Apple's lightest remains a great ultraportable laptop, though the lack of a high-resolution display makes competition such as the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 easier to drift to. Don't skimp on RAM, as it cannot be upgraded.

Lenovo's latest ultraportable is the first to truly make Apple's MacBook Air look out of breath. Its amazing 3200x1800 display and powerful hardware make it the best option for Windows users, though it pays for it all with relatively poor battery life.

Apple's two models of iPad are now essentially the same thing in different sizes, both featuring retina displays, a 64-bit A7 CPU and the same storage and connectivity options. Nothing else is quite in the same league, this holiday season; Android users should wait for next year's crop.

A cheap, iTunes-compatible player with physical controls is essential for joggers, drivers, cyclists and anyone else smart enough to know that touchscreens will kill them. Apple are going to stop making these sooner or later: better buy five of them now.

Called "one of the most important works in American Fantasy" by the American Library Association, Elfquest is back in print after an online run here at Boing Boing. DC Comics' hardcopy archive editions are among the best.

In Zack Giallongo's fantasy debut Zora, a barbarian princess, meets Broxo, the half-feral last survivor of a mysteriously vanished tribe. Together, the two explore the desolate, draugr-infested Peryton Peak and uncover the mountain's secrets. Read more

For long-form reading on the road, there's still nothing better than Kindle's Paperwhite--it comes down to the gentle, even backlighting. Be sure to get the slightly pricier version which doesn't come with "Special Offers"--Amazon's odd way of describing pervasive in-Kindle ads. Note that the giant Kindle DX is now on clearance at just $170.

It's the most wonderful time of the year. A turkey classic: a 2008 news story on Anchorage TV news KTUU channel 2, in which then-governor Sarah Palin is interviewed at a turkey farm while turkeys are slaughtered behind her.
(via Greg Mitchell)]]>

It's the most wonderful time of the year. A turkey classic: a 2008 news story on Anchorage TV news KTUU channel 2, in which then-governor Sarah Palin is interviewed at a turkey farm while turkeys are slaughtered behind her.
(via Greg Mitchell)]]>

This year I have become Fish-Man! The idea was inspired by the fish-man character, Toby, in the show Ugly Americans. I think the idea of a fish wearing pants is pretty hilarious, and luckily the costume turned out to be as funny as I hoped it would. I've already worn it out on the bus and train home from work and it made quite a few smiles all
around :)

The head is chicken wire, screen door mesh, paper mache, foam and fabric. I also had to special order some very large pants which I velcroed to the fish head. Oh, and the eyes light up too-- they're those battery-operated closet push-lights ;)

I'll be walking in the 16th Annual Halloween on Halsted Parade this Wednesday in Chicago at 7pm CST. Hope to see you Chicago readers there-- Happy Halloween!

This year I have become Fish-Man! The idea was inspired by the fish-man character, Toby, in the show Ugly Americans. I think the idea of a fish wearing pants is pretty hilarious, and luckily the costume turned out to be as funny as I hoped it would. I've already worn it out on the bus and train home from work and it made quite a few smiles all
around :)

The head is chicken wire, screen door mesh, paper mache, foam and fabric. I also had to special order some very large pants which I velcroed to the fish head. Oh, and the eyes light up too-- they're those battery-operated closet push-lights ;)

I'll be walking in the 16th Annual Halloween on Halsted Parade this Wednesday in Chicago at 7pm CST. Hope to see you Chicago readers there-- Happy Halloween!

In our Epic Halloween DIY Costume thread, Boing Boing reader slippy0 shares these snapshots and says, "Mine really isn't that fancy, but the stars aligned and gave me a week of time to work on props. I was Marshall Lee from Adventure Time, and decided to make his axe-bass instead of just painting a 2D cutout. The results aren't amazing, but they're more than I planned to do, and very DIY. I went with my friend who was Fionna. We got a lot of compliments. :) "]]>

In our Epic Halloween DIY Costume thread, Boing Boing reader slippy0 shares these snapshots and says, "Mine really isn't that fancy, but the stars aligned and gave me a week of time to work on props. I was Marshall Lee from Adventure Time, and decided to make his axe-bass instead of just painting a 2D cutout. The results aren't amazing, but they're more than I planned to do, and very DIY. I went with my friend who was Fionna. We got a lot of compliments. :) "]]>

[UPDATE: You guys, sorry, but Disqus is not behaving well today with image uploads. If you leave a comment with a photo of your costume here, and the image doesn't show, consider sharing it via a third-party image hosting site link?]

year here at Boing Boing, we invite you, dear readers, to share your plans for fun home-made costumes. So what's it gonna be for you (and/or your children) in 2012? Frankenstorm Sandy? A Mars Rover? Honey Boo Boo? Do tell, in the comments.

[UPDATE: You guys, sorry, but Disqus is not behaving well today with image uploads. If you leave a comment with a photo of your costume here, and the image doesn't show, consider sharing it via a third-party image hosting site link?]

Twig Case Co. in Minnesota makes nice iPhone cases out of paper and bamboo, including this beautiful Jim Woodring model, called "Frank in the Tempest."

The founder of Twig Case, Jon Lucca, is an illustrator, too, and I really like his art on "The Bunker" bamboo case. I saw a little easter egg in it that made me smile! (Click thumbnail for enlargement.)

(UPDATE: use the code 'boingboing' and get 20% off anything until the end of the month.)

]]>

Twig Case Co. in Minnesota makes nice iPhone cases out of paper and bamboo, including this beautiful Jim Woodring model, called "Frank in the Tempest."

The founder of Twig Case, Jon Lucca, is an illustrator, too, and I really like his art on "The Bunker" bamboo case. I saw a little easter egg in it that made me smile! (Click thumbnail for enlargement.)

(UPDATE: use the code 'boingboing' and get 20% off anything until the end of the month.)

]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/07/13/171020.html/feed12171020Radiolab marathon all day todayhttp://boingboing.net/2012/07/04/radiolab-marathon-all-day-toda.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/04/radiolab-marathon-all-day-toda.html#commentsWed, 04 Jul 2012 17:38:20 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=169226You can listen to the entire marathon on MPR's live stream from anywhere in the world. ]]>You can listen to the entire marathon on MPR's live stream from anywhere in the world. ]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/07/04/radiolab-marathon-all-day-toda.html/feed3169226Hi-rez scans of Easter candy wrappers through the ageshttp://boingboing.net/2012/04/09/hi-rez-scans-of-easter-candy-w.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/09/hi-rez-scans-of-easter-candy-w.html#commentsMon, 09 Apr 2012 12:54:11 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=153640 The Flickr stream of Jason Liebig -- previously featured for his sticker and packaging photos -- is a good place to go for some bloated, semi-sickened post-Easter-sweets perusal. His "Easter"-tagged candy wrappers include groovy 1960s Life Savers holiday packaging, 1970s Fuzzy Bunny packaging, and an extraordinary 1978 Rodda Candy Company ad (pictured here). All of them are available at very high rez (the one pictured here can be had at 4962 px wide!). I love Liebig's feed of odd candy packaging and ephemera, and was moved by his "collector heartbreak" story about the troubles of shipping rare old paper through the US mail.

http://boingboing.net/2012/04/06/howto-make-chocolatey-zombie-b.html/feed4153447Stormtrooper Easter egghttp://boingboing.net/2012/04/03/stormtrooper-easter-egg.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/03/stormtrooper-easter-egg.html#commentsTue, 03 Apr 2012 19:03:48 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=152665 Nicola sez, "I made this for my husband last weekend and he mentioned in passing that he thought I should send it in to you. I created it using a CraftRobo Pro cutter/ plotter, a stencil I made in illustrator and some sticky backed plastic and then painted over it with matt acrylic paint. Tidying up any areas that went wrong with a scalpel (you can etch slightly into the egg if need be). He loves it. I think I'll have to make him a new one each year until he has an army!"

Nicola sez, "I made this for my husband last weekend and he mentioned in passing that he thought I should send it in to you. I created it using a CraftRobo Pro cutter/ plotter, a stencil I made in illustrator and some sticky backed plastic and then painted over it with matt acrylic paint. Tidying up any areas that went wrong with a scalpel (you can etch slightly into the egg if need be). He loves it. I think I'll have to make him a new one each year until he has an army!"

Further to Mark's bizarre old Valentines post from yesterday: Flickr user Page of Bats has assembled a marvellous and often inexplicable collection of tasteless, gross and weird vintage V-day cards. I can't figure out of some of these were from the likes of MAD magazine, or if they were all created in earnest by clueless card companies.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/14/bizarre-v-day-cards-of-yestery.html/feed6143868How To: Close up your turkeyhttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/26/how-to-close-up-your-turkey.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/26/how-to-close-up-your-turkey.html#commentsMon, 26 Dec 2011 22:31:49 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=136066Some holiday advice from the journal Veterinary Record. What's the best method to use for sewing up a turkey after you've stuffed it? Turns out, surgical staples might be your best option. (Actually, this is a trick question: The correct choice is to cook the stuffing separately and break the bird down so you can properly heat the dark meat through without turning the breasts into sad, dry lumps. But I digress.)]]>Some holiday advice from the journal Veterinary Record. What's the best method to use for sewing up a turkey after you've stuffed it? Turns out, surgical staples might be your best option. (Actually, this is a trick question: The correct choice is to cook the stuffing separately and break the bird down so you can properly heat the dark meat through without turning the breasts into sad, dry lumps. But I digress.)]]>http://boingboing.net/2011/12/26/how-to-close-up-your-turkey.html/feed13136066Custom Newtonmas ornamenthttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/23/custom-newtonmas-ornament.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/23/custom-newtonmas-ornament.html#commentsFri, 23 Dec 2011 22:50:01 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=135811

This came from an episode of Big Bang theory. They observed that Dec 25th isn’t actually Jesus’ birthday, he was most likely born some time in Sept, but it is Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday. So it makes more sense to put him on the tree!

My wife thought this was awesome since we’re trying to establish Christmas traditions that are dictated by our lives, not our parents lives.

I approached a friend of mine who’s a very talented artist about the project. He liked the idea and agreed to take it on. The tough part was getting it to look nice without being unnecessarily flippant. It’s a wire armature covered in Sculpy, then painted white with a finishing layer of varnish.

This came from an episode of Big Bang theory. They observed that Dec 25th isn’t actually Jesus’ birthday, he was most likely born some time in Sept, but it is Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday. So it makes more sense to put him on the tree!

My wife thought this was awesome since we’re trying to establish Christmas traditions that are dictated by our lives, not our parents lives.

I approached a friend of mine who’s a very talented artist about the project. He liked the idea and agreed to take it on. The tough part was getting it to look nice without being unnecessarily flippant. It’s a wire armature covered in Sculpy, then painted white with a finishing layer of varnish.

Puppets, songs, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Charles Dickens - all that and more are in our internet video holiday special: "Ruffus The Dog's Christmas Carol".
Not just for kids, it's an unusual half-hour take on Dickens's classic - released under a Creative Commons License.
Funded partly through IndieGoGo and a lot of sweat equity from the performers (total budget just a little over $5,000) we shot this thing in 4 days in my living room. All the puppet characters were shot against green screen and then combined with CG virtual sets and a pantload of special effects.

The music and songs were composed by JP Houston (Big Comfy Couch).
We released this online yesterday, right after we had a screening at the old Revue Cinema in Toronto with box office proceeds going to the Toronto Public Library Foundation.
Free to watch. Free to download. Free to share.

Puppets, songs, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Charles Dickens - all that and more are in our internet video holiday special: "Ruffus The Dog's Christmas Carol".
Not just for kids, it's an unusual half-hour take on Dickens's classic - released under a Creative Commons License.
Funded partly through IndieGoGo and a lot of sweat equity from the performers (total budget just a little over $5,000) we shot this thing in 4 days in my living room. All the puppet characters were shot against green screen and then combined with CG virtual sets and a pantload of special effects.

The music and songs were composed by JP Houston (Big Comfy Couch).
We released this online yesterday, right after we had a screening at the old Revue Cinema in Toronto with box office proceeds going to the Toronto Public Library Foundation.
Free to watch. Free to download. Free to share.

Matters of Grey created some beautiful, downloadable designs for cutting out Star Wars-themed snowflakes, and Anthony Herrera extended the collection, adding several designs, including a smashing Admiral Ackbar.

Matters of Grey created some beautiful, downloadable designs for cutting out Star Wars-themed snowflakes, and Anthony Herrera extended the collection, adding several designs, including a smashing Admiral Ackbar.

Funny man and filmmaker Mark Day shares his videos embedded above and below, and explains:

Tex Allen of WhyTheNose.com reminds revellers that it's not illegal to be nude in San Francisco (lewd is, of course, another matter), during an apparently legitimate Guinness World Record attempt to assemble the most naked Santas in one place, at Washington Square Park in San Francisco during SantaCon 29011. No word on when the record is actually ratified.

Of course, several hundred suit-optional Santas opted to keep their clothes on.

Funny man and filmmaker Mark Day shares his videos embedded above and below, and explains:

Tex Allen of WhyTheNose.com reminds revellers that it's not illegal to be nude in San Francisco (lewd is, of course, another matter), during an apparently legitimate Guinness World Record attempt to assemble the most naked Santas in one place, at Washington Square Park in San Francisco during SantaCon 29011. No word on when the record is actually ratified.

Of course, several hundred suit-optional Santas opted to keep their clothes on.